Leona Maguire carded four birdies on her back nine to open with a two-under round of 70 on day one of the LPGA’s Ford Championship presented by Wild Horse Pass, leaving her tied for 59th on a day of low scoring.
After an indifferent Asian Swing, Maguire will have been looking forward to getting back on US soil, but despite making an early birdie, a double bogey-five on the third and another bogey on six left her on +2 at the turn and well down the leaderboard.
Her revival was sparked on the 11th, and the birdie kickstarted a three-hole stretch where she’d birdie each and get herself back into red figures before adding another on the 17th. Her tally leaves her just the right side of the cutline but her impressive turnaround on day one should provide the confidence boost to make further ground on day two.
Two-time LPGA Tour winner Charley Hull blitzed Whirlwind Golf Club in the first round firing a bogey-free, nine-under 63 to hold an early one-shot lead in Arizona.
The Englishwoman started her day on the 10th hole and picked up her first birdie of the round on the par-5 12th hole, making another birdie on 14 to move to two-under. She landed a one-two punch of birdies on holes 16 and 17 to climb to four-under and then parred 18 to turn in 32.
Hull made even more hay on the first three holes of Whirlwind Golf Club’s front nine, rattling off three consecutive birdies on the par-4 1st, par-5 2nd, and par-3 3rd holes to race up the leaderboard to seven-under total. She then collected two more birdies on the par-4 5th and par-5 7th holes before parring out to post a nine-under 63, her new lowest career round on the LPGA Tour.
“I kind of tweaked my driver at the beginning of the week. I had Adrian from TaylorMade here, and we were working on that—the new driver—and I really, really, really hit it well today,” said Hull, who hit 11 of 14 fairways and 18 of 18 greens on Thursday. “I felt like that put me in a lot of good positions. I putted pretty well. I chipped pretty well. I hit it pretty well with my iron shots. I don’t think I missed a green and didn’t really miss any fairways. I was hitting it well and felt confident. Just felt good out there.”
But 18 holes of golf wasn’t the only thing that Hull was doing this morning in Arizona. She got up at 2:30 a.m. local time to connect with her family in England, and as is normal these days for Hull, she got in a thorough morning workout—one that many wouldn’t consider tackling before 18 holes of tournament golf.
“I was up at 2:30 because I wanted to speak to my family back at home,” said Hull, “and then I ran a little 7K, and then I had some rowing thresholds to do, and then I trained my lower body, so my legs. I was in the gym from 4:00 until 6:00.”
Denmark’s Nanna Koerstz Madsen is trailing Hull by just one shot after posting a near-perfect eight-under 64, a day-one effort that saw her make one bogey and nine birdies, two sets of which came back-to-back on holes one, two, six, and seven.
Her opening 64 equals the 30-year-old’s second-lowest career round on the LPGA Tour, which she last carded at the 2024 Meijer LPGA Classic for Simply Give, and is now her lowest first-round score on the LPGA Tour, surpassing her previous benchmark of 65 that she most recently recorded at the Founders Cup presented by U.S. Virgin Islands in February.
“It was fine. I stayed in the fairways, so that made it a little easier,” said the LPGA Tour winner. “I had a fun birdie on 10. I hit it into the bunker, and my bunker shot would definitely have gone eight feet past, but it hit the flagstick and went straight in, so that was a good one. Other than that, I made a couple of good putts and some steady birdies.”
There is an eight-way tie for third, a group of players that most notably includes major winners Sei Young Kim and Brooke Henderson. All eight athletes posted seven-under 65s, and they made only seven bogeys in total. Henderson was bogey-free.
Defending champion Nelly Korda carded a five-under 67 to kick off her first title defence of the 2025 LPGA Tour season and sits in a tie for 17th through 18 holes, while Phoenix native Sarah Schmelzel posted a six-under 66 on Thursday, a bogey-free effort that saw her make six birdies in total, three of which came consecutively on holes 15, 16, and 17. Seventy-five players are currently at two-under or better.
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